A Wizard, a Witch, and Harry
by Mr Bellatrix Lestrange
Summary: "We pretend to be grown-ups. We do grown-up stuff. You can be the daddy, and I'll be the mummy." Severus doesn't understand the appeal of growing up, but he'd play the game if only to grow up with Lily.


It was half-way through the summer and already Lily and Severus had run out of things to do. They'd explored the meadows, climbed the trees, captured tadpoles from the creek and then let them go. They'd spoken all about wizardry, and all about the Muggle way of life, bothered Petunia, and met each other's parents. They had left no stone unturned and it was only at a very last resort that they found themselves playing house. Severus had been rather hesitant of the game, but Lily assured him that he would like it and so he complied grudgingly.

"I just don't see the point in it," Severus grumbled in a last minute attempt to get them out of their current predicament. They were in Lily's candied-pink room as she rifled through a toy trunk at the end of her bed. He looked down at the mess of toys around her, at things they had broken and used. "We should do something else..." _Anything else_, he thought, and his mind scrambled around for something he enjoyed doing with Lily. "Why don't we just go read some more _fairy tales_?"

Lily stood just so that she could put her hands on her hips, and she huffed so hard that her orange hair fluttered in front of her. "Because we've already _read_ all of the fairy tales!" she cried, shaking her head in annoyance. "Grimm's, Anderson's, _and_ Perrault's."

"So?"

"_Twice_." Lily emphasised, glaring at Severus as if he had single-handedly set the very fairy tales on fire. "We're playing house, and that's final," she commanded, glaring at him until the resignation showed on his face and then she went back to her searching.

Severus frowned at Lily's hunched figure, wondering how she always managed to get her way. He sat down on her bed. "Alright then, Miss Bossy. How do we play?"

"Well..." Lily began contemplatively, still hunched, tapping a finger on her chin. "We pretend to be grown-ups. We do grown-up stuff. You can be the daddy, and I'll be the mummy."

"I didn't want to be the mum anyways," Severus mumbled. He couldn't see the appeal of doing grown-up things –what did his dad ever do besides yell and drink? "What else?" he urged, hoping there might be something more to the game.

"I don't know, grown-up stuff!" Lily said again as she began to twirl her hair, something she only did when she was nervous. "What do grown-up wizards do?"

Severus lied down on the pink comforter and looked up at the ceiling, folding his hands over his stomach. "They..." Now that he came to think of it, what was the point of being a grown-up? They never did anything amusing or even remotely fun, and they discouraged imagination almost as much as Petunia discouraged magic. At least that's what _his_ parents did. "They work at the Ministry," he finally settled on. "They apparate and they do magic without getting in trouble. Plus they know tons of spells. And then the dad takes the mum out to dinner and... They dance. And they drink _champagne_." Severus didn't know if they actually did or if he just wanted to believe they did, like in the picture books. But if he could dance with Lily, then maybe being a grown-up wouldn't be so bad. And maybe they could be real grown-ups together one day.

"Does that mean we have to dance?" Lily asked with a slight grimace.

"Only if you want to," Severus started. Then he added, "play the game right."

"Okay," she agreed, but then she returned to the trunk of toys and pulled out a thoroughly abused baby doll. "This will be our baby, but we have to find someone to babysit him while we're out." She cradled the doll, which was really quite ugly with its plastic head painted a crude brown. Its eyes were piercingly green and it was floppy and skinny—even for a baby. "His name will be Eddie."

"Eddie?" Severus scoffed. "I have an Uncle Eddie... but my family doesn't mention him much. They say he's a Dark wizard. We can't name our baby 'Eddie'."

"Oh, you're right." Lily admitted, even though she looked slightly offended. "What do you suppose then?"

Severus considered the baby. "I've always liked the name 'Harry'," he shrugged. "I had a dog named 'Harry' once. My dad got rid of him when he barked too much, though."

"Harry..." Lily tried, rolling the word off her tongue. "I guess it works. But I get to name the next baby we have."

"Okay." Severus nodded, watching as Lily set the baby—their baby—down next to a stuffed elephant and turned towards him. He got off the bed and watched the redhead extend a hand.

"And now you say, 'Lily, will you accept this dance?'"

"Lily..." Severus breathed, swooping into a bow and kissing her hand like he remembered from one of the fairy tales. "I would be _honoured_ if you would dance with me."

"Good sir," she returned with a beaming smile. "The pleasure would be all mine."

Severus wasn't sure how long they twisted and twirled without knowing what they were doing and how they were doing it. He did know that Harry watched them the whole time, though. And he never spoke a word.


End file.
